Lazy but Talented...

Shooting people on the street

I've had a lot of positive feedback on my Old Montreal shots, particularly the old guy walking. John called it "The Traveller" and I love that name. Thanks!

As a very shy person, I have a very hard time going up to someone and asking them if I can take their picture. I don't know how people do that, and I wish I could. Some people even go the extra step and say, "please sign this model release"! I can't even begin to think how to do that.

I get that the Traveller was in a public place and therefore I have the right to photograph him, and probably to use his picture for non-commercial purposes. And there's no question that I can say what I think about him as long as it isn't outright slander (a street performer in Ottawa has taken offence that while I thought he was an adequate saxophonist and I even thought he should be in a more prestigious place, like New Orleans; but I said he wasn't "outstanding". Every week or so he writes a rambling ranting, sometimes profane comment on my blog, so I've had to block him).

Paradoxically, the few times I have asked, the people have said "yes". I don't know why I don't do it more often. How do others deal with this?

As an aside, I once took some pictures of kids eating HUGE ice cream cones at Kawartha Dairy. A parent came up to me and told me to ask permission first. I get that (we live in a sad society where you would have to!). A lesson before you point the lens...

Here's another image from Old Montreal last week.

On the way to Ottawa there were some abandoned Cessna 150's at a fuel stop.  

I wasn't the only one photographing them. Ahh, Lightroom's local adjustment brush... 

Got my Filter Adapter!

Very, very slick. This is a product I recommend. It works just as advertised: attach the adapter to your lens, screw each of your commonly used filters into a holder, then when you want to mount a filter, it simply magnetically clamps to the lens.

The magnet is pretty strong: I don't see the filter falling off, although I wouldn't rely on it riding a motorcycle at speed or banging through the brush on my ATV. To remove it, just lift it off at an angle (magnets work like that...). I tried both the 10x ND filter and the circular polarizer on my 17-35mm wide angle and they work perfectly. Note that Xume points out there might be vignetting on ultra wide angles, after all, you're adding an extra ring on the front of the lens, and they're right. Here's a test shot with the polarizer on board, at 17mm

The vignetting disappears at about 20mm. 

I bought the starter kit for $53, for my 77mm diameter lens(es). It comes with one lens adapter and two filter holders. Down the road, I might buy another kit so I can use other filters and put an adapter on each lens (and my lens caps: you can't click a lens cap into the adapter, you have to use a filter holder. That said, I don't use caps when the camera's in the bag, I have a cleaning cloth up against the front of each lens).

Shipping to Canada was only $4, it arrived in about 3 days. There's a little video on their site, click the link!

D600 dust 

I have my D600 back and yes, there are some dust spots again. Only 2 or 3 that I can see, a manageable number for now, and they only really show up at small apertures or when I do an HDR (the merge process seems to enhance them). Les Palenik has reported that he's seen some too.

But as Les points out, "...amazing IQ. Sometimes, I can crop a 24MP image into 4-6 different pictures. Or if I don't get it sharp in camera, then I downrezz it to 6-12MP which makes it sharp enough."

I think it comes down to that. The image quality is so high you see EVERYTHING. Anyway, I'm convinced the D600 is the right camera for me.

I should point out that Les is a prolific micro-stock shooter and the stock sites are very discriminating about image quality. In fact I didn't qualify when I tried a couple of years ago (I'm going to try again). So he knows what he's talking about.

D5100 for sale

 Unfortunately, I can't afford the luxury of having two cameras at this time. I bought the D5100 factory refurbished from Nikon to use while my D600 was in the shop. It has a spiffy fold-out LCD that I'm going to miss, the reach of an APS-C sensor (16.2Mp), it's light, it's fast, it has some neat built-in effects. It handles high ISO situations really well, too. Check this out:

My grandson, Ryan, with low available light. 1/125 at f/8, ISO 6400. I adjusted the exposure a bit in LR, tweaked the eyes and a bit of skin softening, got rid of some visible background in the right corner and cropped it slightly. NO NOISE REDUCTION (well I always add a touch of sharpening and NR on import for all shots, but just a touch)

Here's the deal: $425 (OBO) gets you the body and all the stuff that came with it from Nikon, including warranty. The camera sells new for $565 tax in.  If you want, I have a small MF lens, and I'll discount a DSLR course if you want to learn how to use it. Contact me. Hurry, I think this is going to go fast.

Lazy but Talented

My sister bought me a t-shirt a while ago, it says "Lazy but Talented". I wear it all the time and she knows me. There's a message here... wait for it!

My grandkids were up for a few days this week and Ryan, the 13-year old who is now taller than me, had my D5100 for a bit, while I shot with the D600. We stopped at the Stanhope Airport and there was a helicopter parked there. I took a few shots, but Ryan, who is NOT as lazy as I am, climbed up on top of a storage tank (wonder what's in it!) for a different perspective. On his own, I might add... no prompting from me.

Single frame Nik HDR EFEX toning, in case you were wondering! 

His picture was better than any of mine. The message I alluded to is, "don't be lazy. Find that unusual perspective. Make the effort".

Ryan's picture. Again toned and tweaked in LR. 1/200 at f/9, ISO 500. He was in Aperture Priority, by the way, not Automatic. Take a course! 

While we're on the subject of the D5100 (I'm starting to have second thoughts about selling it!)

This Ruffed Grouse was on the road to the Haliburton School of the Arts (the Haliburton pioneer museum is worth a visit). I grabbed the D5100 and shot out the car window. He did a little dance and fanned his tail for us! 

I mustn't forget my granddaughter Kelly. She's the "Fish Whisperer". She does everything wrong by the book, but she's the only one who catches fish! Deliberate silhouette and I was looking for the rimlighting on her hair when I shot it. This was actually shot with my point-and-shoot, so it's not the camera...

This was really tough!

I've shot waterskiing/wakeboarding from Janie's boat before. It's a real challenge! You're bouncing around, it's hard to keep the camera steady, and tougher still to keep the subject in the frame, never mind in the middle where you can autofocus! In hindsight, I should have pre-focused at his distance (the rope isn't going to change length!) and I should have put the "Active" VR on, something I forgot completely about until this very moment. Next time.

Waterskiers have their eyes closed a lot. With water streaming in their faces at 30 or 40 kph, I'm not surprised! They also get weird expressions when they're exerting physical effort or focusing on what they're doing:

David (Janie's son) is concentrating on a wakeboard trick. You probably can't see the facial expression unless you blow the picture up (click on it). 

You can see it in this one, though! Sorry, David. 

Sometimes things don't go entirely as planned... 

So here's the shot David's probably going to put on his FaceBook page...

I'm going to hop on the ATV and head over to the white water to see what's going on. TTFN...

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Lemonade from Lemons

You know the old saw about making lemonade when you're dealt lemons? Another way of saying "the glass is half full, not half empty" or just "make the best of it". My D600 is on its way back to Nikon for service again.

The Nikon D600 has dust issues

For anyone who's in the industry, that's not news. I sent mine in to Nikon last February and thought they solved it; they actually changed the shutter mechanism which, I learned, was responsible for throwing oil on the lo-pass filter (that piece of glass in front of the sensor itself). It didn't work, Nikon:

This is a crop of the upper left corner of this image. It's about 2300x1500 px. This image was shot with the 17-35mm lens at f/22, and what you're looking at is a merge in HDR Efex of three bracketed shots. I enhanced it so you could see the spots better. You might ask, "Why did you let it go this far?". 

You can't see this stuff when you shoot at f/8. Well, when you look really closely, you can, but it's not obtrusive. Almost all of my shooting is done at f/8 where I can, because that's the sweet spot on most of my lenses. But this time, I wanted the depth of field.

Here's another couple of images I shot at the same location and you'll understand why. These were in fact at f/8 but I had to fight to get focus on the barn.

Both of these images are HDR merges. They will be available as large scale fine art prints. email me if you're interested. You can check out the gallery, they should be up there by the time you read this. 

Anyway, back to the "lemonade" thing. I recognize that Nikon has had some issues with this camera but I trust that they will make it right. Canon people, stop rubbing your hands together in glee, I can hear you! So the good part is, I'll get my camera back (or a replacement) soon, and it'll be great. But I'm without a camera body and that's not acceptable, so I ordered a D5100 refurb from Nikon and as I write this, I'm waiting for the Purolator man to deliver it to me!

I had occasion to handle the D5100 that belonged to a student last week. It's a nice machine, and it has two features that the D600 doesn't have that I'm looking forward to: it has an articulated LCD that flips out from the side so making those ankle-height shots will be easier (my knees are bad); and it's got an APS-C cropped sensor so when I really need to reach out and touch a distant subject, my 400mm lens will look like a 600mm on a full-frame. Everyone tells me the image quality is great, and, well, the price was right. If push comes to shove, I could resell it for what I paid but I think I'll keep it as a backup. I've been needing one anyway, I'm sorry I sold the D300 (but not sorry I got the 17-35 in exchange, Pete!).

So the glass is half-full. I'm coming out ahead.

PS: according to what I've read and heard, Nikon has solved the issue. Apparently only a percentage of early production cameras had this problem, and they've fixed it at the factory on anything made after April.

Speaking of Students...

I need some. Please go to www.photography.to and have a look at the workshops tab. My advertising hasn't kicked in yet and I need some work. I have some 3-hour and some 2-day sessions available, and a flexible calendar. Please pass this on to anyone you know who would benefit from a workshop. I'll come to you if it makes sense.

Speaking of advertising...

Last week I told you I'm a published columnist! I didn't believe it until I actually saw it in print:

Here it is! It's available on line as well, check it out here. I'm on page 2. 

They originally told me they would print the column every two weeks, but they've now changed it to every week! My faithful readers can preview the next column here!

Tuesday was a great photography day!

I had to be in Toronto on Tuesday, and headed for home late afternoon. When I was in Uxbridge for Ryan's graduation last week, I drove by a spot I marked in my mind to return to. That day was just a bright sunny one and the sky was featureless. I should have stopped but I didn't. So I had the opportunity on Tuesday and headed over that way.

When I arrived, it wasn't great, weather wise, but I stuck it out. There was a storm coming from behind me but the sky over the scene I wanted to shoot wasn't great. I spent half an hour shooting various shots, and then the skies opened up and the rain came down in buckets! I got in the car and headed for home. Not 10 minutes later, I drove out of the storm to see this:

I did boost the colours a bit, but it was spectacular. In fact there was a double rainbow, but the other one was too light to look good on film (OK, on 'digital film'!). I used Topaz Clarity on this one, by the way. I'm using it on a lot of pictures now and I really like it! 

Then I turned to my left and saw this scene:

I decided to make a painting out of this one. It took a lot of work to get it right, but I think it was worth it. Again, it will be available as large scale fine art prints. email me if you're interested. You can check out the gallery, it should be up there by the time you read this. 

Not yet done for the day. Now the sky was interesting, so I turned around and went back to the original spot, it was about 10 km back (the above picture was just South of Sunderland on Highway 12; the original scene was just before the turnoff to 12 on Highway 47 in Greenbank). So the top pictures in this blog were taken after I went back. Those were the remnants of the storm that had passed through.

STILL not done. I spent about an hour there, then headed home again. About 5km up the road from the rainbow spot, was this scene.

This is the scene that caught my eye from the road. It's an HDR, of course. As an aside, when I open Nik HDR Efex Pro, I'm drawn to one preset about 90% of the time: the "Dark" one. Here too: I clicked on it, increased the exposure about 10% and saved it. The only other things I did were to remove a red-and-white OFSC sign in front of the bridge and tone down the greens a bit. Fine art print. Gallery. Check it out.

This is marked as part of the "Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs" (OFSC) trail system. Walking over to get this shot, I disturbed a very large dog at the farm to my right, but the farmer came out to corral him (thank you, farmer!). 

OK, back in the car. Another 90 minutes drive to get home. I needed a pit stop at the Tim Horton's in Beaverton and by now it was getting dark.

Earlier this week I was working on an older image that I took in Norland. I wanted to make it a dusk shot, so I created the lighting effects entirely in Photoshop. It wasn't really late in the day when I shot it:

+Ben Willmore shoots a lot of these, usually abandoned old gas stations. That's what got me thinking about it.  

Back to the drive home and the Tim Horton's:

It really was getting dark, and the lights inside the shop looked so warm and inviting. I did have to enhance it, boost the contrast and detail (Topaz Adjust and Clarity). I had another shot that showed some traffic at the pickup window, but I liked this one better.  

So. One drive home, more than half-a-dozen distinct keepers, at least 4 for the gallery and large scale printing. All with a camera infected with dust-spot-measles. It was definitely a good day.

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A New Look!

I've had the same header picture up on my blog for a few years now, and I decided it was time for a change. The original "Canoe in the Mist" image was shot in the fall of 2007. The new picture draws from a consistent palette of colours that I really like. The original shot was of a milkweed pod in a meadow near my house, but I replaced the plant with me (narcissistic, aren't I?)! I hope you like it.

So: on to some "stuff".

NAPP is giving some good deals. But they all happen on Monday, November 28th which is supposedly Cyber-Monday (what do we know in Canada? That's like our "Boxing Day", I hear!). They have 30% off stuff, but for me, the biggie is the extra 6 months membership with a renewal or a new membership. And I was about to expire! If you go to the NAPP site, please use the link at the right so I get my 'brownie points'.

If you don't know NAPP (The National Association of Photoshop Professionals), they're a huge resource for those of us who spend time at our computers making our images look pretty. And they're our advocates against the seemingly unfair policies of Big Business — take the latest one from Adobe where many of us won't be able to get upgrade pricing when CS6 comes out... details on these and other stories after these words about your dirty clothes!

The quote from the last post comes from an ancient George Carlin routine, mid 1960's. The character was "Al Sleet, the hippy-dippy weather man". He said, "...Russia and the United States are at war, missiles have been fired by both sides. Details on these and other stories after this word about your dirty clothes." He was a funny guy.

If you're not a member, click this link to find out more about NAPP. If you are a member, click it to renew, but wait 'till Monday to save some big bux! Go to this page to see the codes you need to use to get your discounts.

What else? Oh yeah,

The Alien Carrot Mystery

I got a lot of feedback from the last post. Some people suggested that someone was baiting deer. Another person thought it was an attempt to outfox the "carrot marketing board". Someone else thinks Santa has lost his reindeer and is trying to get them back. Or that my neighbours have a secret bunny farm in their basement and got a year's supply of food... but I got a bit more insight yesterday when I visited the Carrot Pile again. Here's what the pile looks like, in context:

See? In a meadow, in the middle of nowhere.

And here was my clue: a new addition to the site:

A "Carrot-Cam". I think this camera is fired by a motion sensor, which probably means I'm on Candid Carrot! But why? I stand by my original premise: they're trying to capture photos of the aliens!

Topaz Adjust 5

I've been using Topaz Adjust 4 for some time. Version 5 just came out and for registered users, it's a FREE upgrade and it's a real step forward! For new users, there's a discounted price of $35 until end of November (Code: "ADJUSTME") and then $50 after that. Topaz makes some phenomenal products and if you use Photoshop or Lightroom you really want to have their plug-ins. It's cheap, and upgrades are FREE! Click here to go to the Topaz site to see what they've got.

Here's a picture I worked on yesterday. It uses some of the new features in Topaz Adjust 5, but I also used Nik HDR Efex to produce the original HDR image, and Nik Color Efex for the vignette.

This was also taken yesterday, up in the carrot field

I'll be doing some analysis and some how-to's about Adjust 5 in my Tech blog, but not today! Give me a few days and come back. There are some things I haven't figured out yet. But go get your copy before the special offer expires!

One last picture for today

The Gull River at Norland. This is NOT an HDR. It is exactly as it looked when I shot it. It's a 2-shot pano with the wide angle and covers close to 180°. It's a huge wide image and I could probably print it 3 meters wide.

For the record, I did try an HDR but I didn't like the artifacts I got. Merged automatically in Photoshop CS5. I did tweak this with Topaz Adjust 5 and I removed some dust spots, but that's all.

Oh yeah, dust spots!

I almost forgot. I had some very persistent dust spots despite my best efforts to remove them. Mark (from RHCC) told me about a great place in Toronto to get my sensor cleaned, so I went there on Friday. Great experience!

For the record, Nikon wants $80 to clean the sensor, but more importantly, they want to keep your camera for up to 2 weeks! Not me. These people apparently do the service work for a large retailer who shall remain un-named, but their name starts with "H"... they're an authorized Canon service shop but they do all brands. They're located at Steeles/Keele. I brought in the camera around 11:30 and picked it up 2 hours later. $60. If you're in Toronto, give them a try: Sun Camera Service, 2150 Steeles W, 905 669 6355, info@suncameraservice.ca. www.suncameraservice.ca, Nick. Tell him I sent you.

Apparently my mirror bay was full of dust as well, every shutter actuation released a cloud. I really should be more careful.

Next time!

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